betterthanaplan | The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Sunday evening

The joys of sailing in from 2008, Duke was not dealing with a giant winter storm as he made his way down the coast from Maine. The weather had in fact been perfectly fine until he crossed into Fandom waters and the first of the white flakes hit the boat. He'd had some warning about this, sort of, thanks to Octavia's voicemail, but it still took him a couple minutes to work out that it really was powdered sugar falling from the sky instead of snow.

He managed to get his boat docked without getting too much of a contact sugar high, and paused on the deck for a few moments to just watch it drift in the glow of his string lights. It didn't sparkle quite the same way a good snowfall would, but it was pretty enough in its own way, and with the hood of his slicker pulled to protect his hair, he could let himself relax for a minute and just enjoy it.

A porg landed on the deck, liberally dusted and practically buzzing like a hummingbird as it rolled around in a small sugar drift. He was going to be cleaning up tiny sugar porg prints for days. Duke watched it for a moment, then turned his face back up towards the sky, tasting sugar on his lips.

"Home sweet Fandom."

This couldn't possibly be good for the fish.

[can be open, sure!]

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From:

okteiviakom

"I'm not 'everyone'," Octavia replied, "and I'm not 'most people', either."

She was fine with being unique.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Of course not," Duke said. "You're Okteivia kom Gonakru. It's just -- taking some getting used to. That's all."

From:

okteiviakom

"I know," Octavia sighed, her gaze flicking back up to his face. "Believe me, I do. If someone had told me three months ago this would be the situation now..."

The only reason she wouldn't have laughed in their face would've been that she'd mostly only regained that ability within the last three months.

From:

betterthanaplan

"You'd have stared at them blankly until they went away?" Duke asked.

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia snorted. "Or until I decided to walk away. Whichever happened quicker."

From:

betterthanaplan

"That's a tough call," Duke mused. "On the one hand, you have a very intimidating blank stare. On the other, very limited tolerance for idiots."

Basically, himself and Magnus. He figured that was it.

From:

okteiviakom

He was not wrong.

"I mean, what's the point in listening to nonsense?"

From:

betterthanaplan

"Sometimes it's funny?"

From:

okteiviakom

"Well, guess you'd know."

Did it make that less rude if she also gave his hand a squeeze?

From:

betterthanaplan

"Damn!" Duke laughed. "I'm just going to assume you mean because of my impeccable sense of humor."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia's little smirk was downright sly. "Whatever you need to tell yourself, Duke."

From:

betterthanaplan

"You're a cruel woman, Tavi. And yet, I have still had worse."

He had kind of terrible luck when it came to exes, let's be real.

From:

okteiviakom

"I'd like to think I'm not that bad, anyway," Octavia replied, sly giving way to something more wry again. "But it might be too early to tell either way."

It was funny how some things seemed easier a war zone.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke affected a British accent. "My lady's tongue is as sharp as her legs are sweet." He dropped it again just as quickly. "I've always had a thing for the mean ones, anyway."

From:

okteiviakom

The accent was enough to startle Octavia into laughing. It was actually kind of loud (by her standards, anyway). And she made no effort to hold it back, or to duck her head or otherwise hide.

Which had to mean she was comfortable, yes.

She also snorted. "I'm not mean, I'm just honest." No, she was a ruthless snarker when her environment wasn't beating her into submission. "And you don't know the half of it, about my tongue."

From:

betterthanaplan

"You can wound with your words as easily as with your sword," Duke said, back in that accent. (It'd made her laugh!) "I just happen to have excellent word-armor."

From:

okteiviakom

The accent was not doing great things to Octavia's composure. She was still kind of snickering.

"Sure," she said, giving his hand a light tug, not even for any real reason. "And no sense of self-preservation."

From:

betterthanaplan

"Who needs self-preservation?" Duke asked. "I have word-armor."

From:

okteiviakom

"Branwoda," Octavia scoffed, smiling. "Yu fig raun jos armor kom teilon na shil yu op kom ai teisa?"

From:

betterthanaplan

"See? Whatever you just said bounces right off."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia shook her head. Practically tsked. "Ai don sin in ha yu feis don ge bliden, fou."

She'd come back to English in a second.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Armor," Duke said. "Unless you're talking about me being hit in the face. There's not a lot word-armor can do about that."

And yet, his instinct was still to try to talk himself out of things.